Meet Our Hosts

Scott Neuman

Scott Neuman works as a Digital News writer and editor, handling breaking news and feature stories for NPR.org. Occasionally he can be heard on-air reporting on stories for Newscasts and has done several radio features since he joined NPR in April 2007, as an editor on the Continuous News Desk.

Neuman brings to NPR years of experience as an editor and reporter at a variety of news organizations and based all over the world. For three years in Bangkok, Thailand, he served as an Associated Press Asia-Pacific desk editor. From 2000-2004, Neuman worked as a Hong Kong-based Asia editor and correspondent for The Wall Street Journal. He spent the previous two years as the international desk editor at the AP, while living in New York.

As the United Press International's New Delhi-based correspondent and bureau chief, Neuman covered South Asia from 1995-1997. He worked for two years before that as a freelance radio reporter in India, filing stories for NPR, PRI and the Canadian Broadcasting System. In 1991, Neuman was a reporter at NPR Member station WILL in Champaign-Urbana, IL. He started his career working for two years as the operations director and classical music host at NPR member station WNIU/WNIJ in DeKalb/Rockford, IL.

Reporting from Pakistan immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks, Neuman was part of the team that earned the Pulitzer Prize awarded to The Wall Street Journal for overall coverage of 9/11 and the aftermath. Neuman shared in several awards won by AP for coverage of the December 2004 Asian tsunami.

A graduate from Purdue University, Neuman earned a Bachelor's degree in communications and electronic journalism.

Former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton will officially announce her intention to seek the 2016 Democratic nomination for president on Sunday afternoon, ending years of speculation over her plans to pursue the Oval Office, NPR has learned.

The Two-Way

9:34 am

Fri April 10, 2015

Pakistan's parliament has rejected a proposal to join a Saudi-led coalition battling Yemen's Houthi rebels, a move that could dash Riyadh's hopes of forming a wider Sunni front against the Iranian-allied rebels on its southern flank.

Pakistani lawmakers instead approved a draft resolution calling on all sides in the Arabian Peninsula conflict to peacefully resolve their differences peacefully. Riyadh had asked for troops, planes and possibly naval support.

Pacific Gas & Electric Co.has been ordered to pay a $1.6 billion penalty — the largest ever levied against a public utility — for a 2010 explosion in a gas pipeline it operated that killed eight people and destroyed dozens of homes in a San Francisco suburb.

The five-member California Public Utilities Commission voted 4-0 Thursday to impose the penalty. President Michael Picker called for a larger review of problems at PG&E, a move that The Associated Press says "suggests the energy behemoth could be broken up."

The Two-Way

1:19 pm

Thu April 9, 2015

Bi Fujian, an anchor of China Central Television (CCTV), speaks during a news conference in Beijing, in 2013. Bi has publicly apologized for remarks he made at a private dinner that were critical of the late communist leader Mao Zedong.

A Chinese television star made a public apology after controversial remarks he made that were critical of communist revolutionary leader Mao Zedong.

Bi Fujian, a regular presenter on state-run CCTV and the host of its annual New Year's variety show — the most-watched television program in the world, according to the BBC — says he's sorry for his actions.

The Two-Way

1:17 pm

Thu April 9, 2015

There's something amiss on Mischief Reef: Before and after satellite imagery of the disputed coral atoll in the South China Sea taken a few years ago and last month show that the reef is growing. And the telltale presence of a Chinese flotilla is proof of who's been at work dredging up white sand and depositing it on the surface.

Meiji Reef, as the Chinese call it, is part of the Spratly Islands, an archipelago that has long been the source of a tug-of-war between China, Vietnam, the Philippines and at least three other claimants.

The Two-Way

9:15 am

Thu April 9, 2015

Ramalinga Raju, founder and former chairman of fraud-hit Satyam Computer Services, is escorted from a court in the southern Indian city of Hyderabad in April 2009. Raju and nine other defendants have been convicted of fraud and conspiracy.

In one of India's largest-ever cases of corporate fraud, the founder and chairman of failed outsourcing giant Satyam Computer Services and nine other defendants have been sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of stealing millions from shareholders.

An Indian court in the country's tech hub, Hyderabad, ruled Thursday that B. Ramalinga Raju, his two brothers and seven other officials of Satyam — which collapsed in 2009 — used forged documents and fake bank accounts in a scheme that cost the company's shareholders $2.28 billion.

Pope Francis, in his annual Urbi et Orbi ("To the City [Rome] and to the World") Easter address at St. Peter's Basilica, praised the framework agreement on Iran's nuclear program and expressed concern about bloodshed in Africa and the Middle East.

The gunman in question – one of four killed during the siege at Garissa College – was Abdirahim Mohammed Abdullahi, the son of the local chief in Mandera County, The Associated Press and the BBC report.